7 Reasons Your Business Should Target Long Tail Keywords:

The keywords you choose to optimise your website content for can have huge implications on the success of your entire SEO strategy. Thus it is very important to get it right.

Guessing keywords or only targeting highly competitive broad keywords is a wrong strategy that can jeopardise your SEO campaign from the start and can be difficult to recover from. This is one of the biggest mistakes in Keyword research a business can make.

Rather than targeting the most common broad keywords in your niche, it is better for your business to focus on more niche, long-tail search terms that are easier and quicker to rank for.

Optimising your website for long tail keywords can prove extremely successful for your business. In fact, long tail keywords can amount for up to 60% of a website?s total search traffic. Take a look below at the top keywords that drive traffic to this website.? You can clearly see that long-tail keywords feature prominently.

If you are still not convinced, here are 7 reasons why targeting long tail keywords is more profitable for your business.

7 Reasons Your Business Should Target Long Tail Keywords:

1. Easier to Rank

It is much easier for your website to rank favourably on search engine results for long-tail keywords than it is for broad keywords.? By targeting broad keywords you are essentially competing with millions of other businesses which can make it next to impossible to rank on the first page of search results. Long tail keywords on the other have much less competition, making it easier to rank.

2. Quick ROI

The choice of keywords also has an impact on your return on investment.Due to diminished competition, you will have to spend far less time and resources to achieve a decent ranking for long-tail keywords that you would for highly competitive broad search terms. While a first page ranking for broad keywords can take more than a year to achieve, the same can be achieved for long tail keywords within a few months. As a result, the return on investment is noticeable faster for long tail keywords.

3. More Targeted and Relevant

The traffic generated from long tail keywords is more targeted than broad keywords. Long-tail keywords are more specific and offer a better match for meeting the exact needs of the searcher. For example, when a customer is searching for ?Web design services in London? and your web design company from London shows up in the results, it would be a better match than another high-ranking business that targets ?Web design?.

4. High Conversion Rates

Broad keywords are typically used by customers for initial research during the early stages of the decision making process. Long tail keywords, on the other hand, are very specific and typically used by customers when they are closer to the decision making process in the purchasing life-cycle. As a result, long-tail keywords often produce higher conversions and can be more profitable for a business to target. For the above example, corresponding long tail keywords can be ?Property for rent in West London? or ?Bespoke Web Design in London?, instead of the broad search terms ?Property? and ?Web Design? respectively.

5. Benefits for PPC campaigns

Long-tail keywords can prove very beneficial for Pay per click campaigns which are becoming increasingly expensive and can be a drain on your company?s marketing budget. If you use PPC campaigns such as Google Adwords, you can improve your results significantly by targeting long-tail keywords. The cost per click of long tail keywords is often many times lower than that of broad keywords. Targeting long tail keywords in your PPC campaigns ensures high conversion and lower overall costs.

6. Good Starting Point

Targeting less competitive long-tail keywords can also be a good starting point for your overall SEO strategy . As your site builds authority and trust by ranking favourably for long tail-keywords, it puts you in a better standing for achieving the same for more competitive broad keywords. It is a great starting point, particularly if your website is new.

7. Easier to Optimse Individual Pages for Specific Keywords

Search engines crawl every page on your website individually. It is thus important that the search terms, each page is optimised for, are as specific as possible to the content on that particular page. It is also important not to optimise two pages for the same keyword as they will be competing against each other for ranking. Long tail keywords make is easier to achieve this.

Drawbacks of Targeting Long-Tail Keywords

Like any other marketing technique, there are some drawbacks of targeting long-tail keywords that your business should know of. One of the main drawbacks of targeting long-tail keywords as part of your SEO efforts is search volumes. The traffic volumes of long-tail keywords can be considerably lower than that of broad keywords. But then again, the probability of your ranking high for a broad keyword is very limited and much higher for long tail keywords. My advice will be to not rely on guess work but use Google?s Keyword Tool to estimate monthly search volumes for your long tail keywords before finalising your decision.

Conclusion

This doesn?t mean that you can?t target broad keywords. It just means that you shouldn?t only target broad keywords. A business needs to find the right balance between broad and long tail keywords in order to maximise the benefits of SEO and get the highest converting traffic to their website. The best keywords to choose are mid range, not too broad or too specific.

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Source: http://www.kronikmedia.co.uk/blog/why-target-long-tail-keywords/6205/

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Office for iPad referenced on French and Romanian Microsoft support sites

Officially there is no Office for iPad... or iOS or Android. But, it seems a foregone conclusion that the premier productivity suite will be crossing those ecosystem boundaries. In addition to countless rumors and alleged screenshots, now references to the app are cropping up on Microsoft's own sites. Documents over at the French and Romanian Office support pages have been tagged (incorrectly) as applying to "Office Mobile for iPhone," "Excel for iPad," "Lync for iPhone," and "PowerPoint for iPad." The docs in question don't actually pertain to these unreleased products, but the repeated mislabeling across documents and languages (presumably by Microsoft employees) would seem to indicate they actually exist. Of course, it could all be an elaborate hoax, but we'd find that pretty hard to swallow.

Filed under: Software, Apple, Microsoft

Comments

Via: The Next Web, Mac4Ever

Source: Microsoft 1, 2

Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/kxLl8s1jX8U/

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Roche breast cancer drug extends overall survival

ZURICH (Reuters) - Swiss pharma group Roche's drug Perjeta significantly extended the lives of women with an aggressive and incurable form of breast cancer compared to a placebo, according to new data from a late-stage study presented on Saturday.

The detailed data presented at the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium found that the risk of death was reduced by 34 percent in women treated with a combination treatment of the drugs Perjeta and Herceptin plus chemotherapy compared to women treated with Herceptin, chemotherapy and a placebo, Roche said.

Roche is hoping that the Perjeta combination will become the standard treatment for women with a form of cancer known as HER2-positive, which makes up about a quarter of all breast cancers and has no cure.

At the time of the analysis, median overall survival had not yet been reached in people receiving the Perjeta combination, as more than half of these people continued to survive, Roche said.

Median overall survival was more than three years for people who received Herceptin and chemotherapy, Roche said, adding no new safety signals had been observed in the phase III study.

"This treatment combination with Perjeta is the first to have significantly extended survival compared to Herceptin and chemotherapy in people with previously untreated HER2-positive metastatic breast cancer," Roche's Chief Medical Officer Hal Barron said in the statement.

Breast cancer is the most common cancer among women worldwide, with about 1.4 million new cases diagnosed each year and more than 450,000 women dying of the disease annually, according to the World Health Organisation.

Perjeta, also known as pertuzumab, is a personalized medicine that targets a protein found in high quantities on the outside of cancer cells in HER2-positive cancers.

It was granted approval by U.S. health regulators in June. Roche is awaiting a decision from European regulators.

Vontobel analyst Andrew Weiss forecasts peak sales of 2 billion Swiss francs ($2.15 billion) for the drug.

Roche is also developing an "armed antibody" known as TDM-1 as a treatment for HER2-positive breast cancer. TDM-1 combines Herceptin with a derivative of a powerful type of chemotherapy and is designed to reduce unpleasant side effects. ($1 = 0.9313 Swiss francs)

(Reporting by Silke Koltrowitz and Caroline Copley; Editing by Paul Tait)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/roche-breast-cancer-drug-extends-overall-survival-084420242--finance.html

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Could Medicaid Benefits Get Pushed Off the Fiscal Cliff?

Image courtesy of iStockphoto/kroach

Medicaid provides benefits to more than 60 million Americans, including millions of children, who might not otherwise be able to afford medical care. This sizable government program has been sheltered from large federal cuts but is now vulnerable because of the ongoing talks in Washington to close the budget gap and avoid the fiscal cliff.

Sharp cuts to Medicaid would hobble health care reform and hamper efforts to reduce overall health care spending, argues Sara Rosenbuam, a professor of health law and policy at the George Washington University School of Public Health in St. Louis, in an essay published online December 5 in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Medicaid is relatively protected from automatic budget cuts by the Budget Control Act. The program is insulated from the across-the-board spending reduction known as sequestration which is set to take effect if Congress and the president fail to reach a compromise by the end of the year.

However, there are still many ways Medicaid?and with it, some of the Affordable Care Act?s promised health care reform changes?could lose ground during the budgetary negotiations. Medicaid is a tempting target: a massive federal program that is only set to grow. Initially, the Affordable Care Act extended its coverage to some 20 million people as states expand eligibility to those who had not previously qualified but who have trouble obtaining private insurance. But in June, the U.S. Supreme Court undercut this provision, ruling that states were not required to extend additional eligibility.

Rosenbaum argues that reducing coverage would mean that many millions will continue to go without medical coverage, continuing the shift of expenses on to insurers and other patients. The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that insuring people through Medicaid costs 50 percent less per person than subsidizing private insurance from a state-run health insurance exchange. ?The problem is that Medicaid?s cost is driven by high enrollment, not excessive per capita spending,? Rosenbaum notes. ?As a result, there?s very little money to wring out of Medicaid without shaking its structure in ways that reduce basic coverage.?

Medicaid is an effective and efficient investment in health care for large numbers of people, she writes. For example, ?much of the health care that Medicaid beneficiaries receive is furnished through safety-net providers such as community health centers, which are highly efficient and accustomed to operating on tight budgets.?

One proposal to help trim the federal budget, as outlined by the House Budget Committee, run by Paul Ryan, would remove all of the Affordable Care Act?s Medicaid expansions in states and instead give out set grants for states to provide coverage for some qualifying residents. This option is estimated to save some $2 trillion in the next 10 years, but, Rosenbaum argues, it is based on ?an arbitrary limit? rather than actual, changing needs. ?Recent and ongoing demographic shifts?and recent tragedies, such as Hurricane Sandy, underscore the way in which uncontrollable events can cause unexpected surges in the need for government assistance,? she writes.

?Such blunt force strategies would leave many poor and disabled Americans without the basic services they need to stay healthy,? Rosenbaum said in a prepared statement. Instead, she suggests redoubling efforts to increase the program?s efficiency, looking to reduce costs of caring for the most expensive patients, such as those that require long-term institutional care and use both Medicaid and Medicare.

Other proposals limit states? abilities to generate funds for Medicaid by levying taxes on hospitals or pharmacies. They also seek to reduce states? abilities to use Medicaid funds to invest in public hospitals and other centers that care for beneficiaries. ?Changing the rules would destabilize these institutions at the very time when expanded insurance coverage is creating greater demand for care,? Rosenbaum writes.

But Medicaid is a plump and tempting budgetary target. And unlike Medicare, which provides coverage for seniors, Medicaid does not enjoy the same level of vocal (and financial) support. As Rosenbaum notes, often ?Medicaid beneficiaries lack political clout.?

Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=ed6747ee07ce0152df6db2aefffe7c90

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Prophet TB Joshua Instructs REFUND Of $100 Registration Fee ...

Nigerian Prophet T.B. Joshua has released a statement via social network, ?Facebook?, instructing those co-ordinating the arrangement of visits to his popular church in Lagos, Nigeria, to refund the $100 he learned they had been collecting from people as a registration fee.

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Joshua said he was concerned upon learning from emails and online reports that those arranging groups to visit The Synagogue, Church Of All Nations (SCOAN) were taking $100 as a registration fee for those desirous of visiting his famous sanctuary, stating that the organisation of such was charitable in nature and not a money-making venture. ?I have received many emails and newspaper reports on the internet complaining of registration fees of $100. What then makes us an evangelist? When people go to concerts, they also register with $100,? the statement, which was posted to over 500,000 fans of ?TB Joshua Ministries?, read.

?

He maintained that co-ordinating visits to The SCOAN was evangelical and not finance-orientated, warning those involved that collecting undue money from vulnerable people was tantamount to partaking in their troubles. ?If we are evangelists, co-ordinating for God?s sake, all our concerns, aspirations and heart desires must be subjected to the Gospel through works of charity by helping the sick, distressed and unsaved instead of collecting registration fees of $100 from them before giving succour, I mean, attending to them. This cannot be justified; it amounts to taking a portion of their situation.?

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The popular cleric insisted that money-making should not be the focus or drive of such co-ordinators but rather care for the sick and distressed in society. ?If we are focused on making money only, a large slice of life will pass us by. We should spend less on ourselves and more on others,? he exhorted, reminding them of Jesus? words in Matthew 25:40-45.??Don?t forget your promise when you were called to be co-ordinators. Your promise, if I may remind you, was to give rest to the sick, distressed and unsaved,? he wrote.

?

The statement ended with Joshua?s insistence that any money collected for registration should be immediately returned. ?Those who have already paid $100 for the registration should be refunded, for God?s sake.?I am impressed by the prompt action of the co-ordinators in Tanzania and Zimbabwe who have been refunding the $100 paid by each person as a registration fee. I believe all others will act likewise.? Citing Matthew 10:41, he concluded,??He who honours a prophet because he is a prophet will receive a prophet?s reward.?

?

The SCOAN is known to be one of Nigeria?s major tourist attractions, with hundreds of foreign visitors flocking to the cathedral on a weekly basis in search of the miraculous. The ministry is especially popular within Africa, with scores of visitors from South Africa, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Botswana, Zambia, Tanzania, Ghana and a host of other African countries making regular pilgrimages to The SCOAN in Lagos. T.B. Joshua is also renowned for his philanthropy, charitable giving to the less-privileged forming an integral part of his church services broadcast on Emmanuel TV.

SOURCE: TB Joshua Ministries on Facebook

?

Ihechukwu Njoku ? freelance Nigerian journalist currently in London, UK

NB - Contrary to some?insinuations, I am not working for or professionally affiliated with The SCOAN. However, I have visited his church, was deeply impressed and have taken it as a responsibility to broadcast the happenings at The SCOAN to correct the erroneous impressions in the minds of many about this church based on past hearsay and malicious rumours.

?

Posted by Editor on December 6, 2012. Filed under AROUND AFRICA. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry

Source: http://tumfweko.com/2012/12/06/prophet-tb-joshua-instructs-refund-of-100-registration-fee/

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Welcome to My Rare and Antiquarian eBook Shop

Why, hello there!-I was just appraising some rare PDFs in the back room when I heard you come in. Feel free to peruse our inventory, and if you have any questions, please allow me-one of the world's foremost authorities on and purveyors of fine electronic books-to act as your steward through the wonderfully esoteric world of antique eBook collecting. More »

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/kOf_GtM9bg8/welcome-to-my-rare-and-antiquarian-ebook-shop

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Apple investing more than $100 million to bring Mac production line to the US

Marking one year since his ascension to Chief Executive Officer of Apple, Tim Cook has been on a bit of a public relations blitz recently. It's not something Apple really needed, they're not reeling from some unexpectedly poor launch of disappointing figures, but it's been a year since he took over and everybody wants to know how Apple is doing, how Apple has changed, and where Apple is going. We've talked extensively about those changes here - Cook has reorganized Apple from the top-down, tweaking the structure and personnel for greater efficiency and cooperation.

Since taking the helm of Apple, Cook has repeatedly been asked about bringing Apple manufacturing to the United States, and repeatedly said that's something he wants to do. In separate interviews posted today by NBC's Rock Center (full interview coming tonight at 10pm Eastern) and Bloomberg, Cook was again asked about manufacturing in the US, and in light of the stock-configuration iMacs that we've been seeing hitting shelves with "Assembled in USA" labeling, he apparently thought it was time to expound more on Apple's USA plans. The lines delivered to Rock Center and Bloomberg were similar (the man knows how to rehearse), but Bloomberg's included a little extra:

"Next year we are going to bring some production to the U.S. on the Mac. We?ve been working on this for a long time, and we were getting closer to it. It will happen in 2013. We?re really proud of it. We could have quickly maybe done just assembly, but it?s broader because we wanted to do something more substantial. So we?ll literally invest over $100 million. This doesn?t mean that Apple will do it ourselves, but we?ll be working with people, and we?ll be investing our money."

It's still not clear if the new iMacs we've been seeing singing Springsteen's Born in the USA are the first steps in this program or merely Apple using their US custom configuration facilities to produce enough of the ultra-slim computers to meet demand at launch. Either way, there are certainly going to be a lot of people happy to see Apple bringing production lines to the United States, so long as the price and quality of the product aren't affected.

As he has been doing from the start, Cook noted that the US has never really been an electronics manufacturing powerhouse, "so it's not a matter of bringing it back, it's a matter of bringing it here" and building up the skillset in US workers to manage that sort of work. Toyota, Honda, and Nissan (the New York Times has an excellent piece on how Nissan set up automobile manufacturing in Tennessee) went through a similar set of challenges when they brought their automobile manufacturing lines to the United States - while the US auto industry primarily existed in and around Detroit, the skills and practices of the Japanese automakers were, in a way, quite foreign to US workers. IT's worth noting that Apple has not for many years produced their own hardware (unlike the days when there was an Apple-owned Macintosh factory in California), so it's likely that - as Cook implied - Apple will be working with existing manufacturing partners to bring Apple product production to the USA, be it manufacturers already here, or those looking to expand to the US (as Foxconn has rumored to be exploring).

There's also the question of how much this is going to cost Apple from a purely financial standpoint. The idea of production in China comes with the benefit of a highly flexible and massive workforce and incredibly short supply lines. Combined with China's historically low wages, Chinese production is generally just plain cheaper, though you end up paying to ship your completed product across the ocean before you can sell it. Production in the US has it's own risks for Apple, including the higher wages demanded by US workers and the now trans-oceanic component supply lines, though Cook did note that "'it's not so much about price, it's about the skills" and that the sort of engineering and manufacturing education needed to do this isn't as strong in the US as it is in China.

But as the executives at Nissan, Honda, and Toyota would tell you, the US workers they hired in their new factories adapted faster than expected to the Japanese way of building cars - and the Japanese manufacturers learned from the US-trained workers as well.

Source: Rock Center; Bloomberg

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheIphoneBlog/~3/SCRB_n_HeA0/story01.htm

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Brain stimulation may buffer feelings of social pain

ScienceDaily (Dec. 4, 2012) ? Accumulating evidence suggests that certain brain areas involved in processing physical pain may also underlie feelings of social pain.

But can altering brain activity in these areas actually change how people experience social pain?

Paolo Riva of the University of Milano-Bicocca and colleagues wanted to examine whether there might be a causal relationship between activity in the right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (rVLPFC) -- known to be involved in the regulation of physical pain and negative expressions of emotion -- and experiences of social pain. Their findings are published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.

The researchers recruited 79 university students to take part in a "mental visualization exercise." They used a constant-current regulator to stimulate the rVLPFC -- all of the participants were told that they would receive stimulation for 15 minutes but only half of the participants actually received the current.

Five minutes before the end of 15-minute stimulation session, the students played a virtual ball-tossing game called Cyberball. The students were told that they were playing with two other players and that the three of them would take turns throwing the ball to each other. In actuality, a computer program controlled the game. Some of the participants were excluded, receiving the ball only twice and then never again, while other participants received the ball about a third of the time.

The students then reported the percentage of throws they thought they received and rated the unpleasantness of the pain they felt and the hurt feelings they experienced during the game.

Riva and colleagues found that, as predicted, the participants who were socially excluded reported that they received less often than participants who were included. Moreover, they rated the game as more unpleasant and reported more hurt feelings. Notably, these latter effects were reduced for participants who received stimulation over the rVLPFC.

Specifically, socially excluded participants who received the actual current experienced less unpleasantness and less hurt feelings than the participants who believed they were receiving the current. In both cases participants knew they were being excluded, but they appeared relatively unbothered by it if they received stimulation.

"Few studies have examined how the pain of social exclusion can be alleviated. Our results offer the first evidence that stimulation over the rVLPFC reduces the painful effects of social exclusion," Riva and colleagues conclude.

Co-authors on the study include Leonor J. Romero Lauro of the University of Milano-Bicocca, C. Nathan DeWall of the University of Kentucky, and Brad J. Bushman of the Ohio State University and VU University Amsterdam.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Association for Psychological Science.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

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Journal Reference:

1. P. Riva, L. J. Romero Lauro, C. N. DeWall, B. J. Bushman. Buffer the Pain Away: Stimulating the Right Ventrolateral Prefrontal Cortex Reduces Pain Following Social Exclusion. Psychological Science, 2012; DOI: 10.1177/0956797612450894

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/~3/-Fxhzj7u5tA/121204162211.htm

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Egypt's top court shuts down, blames protesters

CAIRO (Reuters) - Protests by Islamists allied to President Mohamed Mursi forced Egypt's highest court to adjourn its work indefinitely on Sunday, intensifying a conflict between some of the country's top judges and the head of state.

The Supreme Constitutional Court said it would not convene until its judges could operate without "psychological and material pressure", saying protesters had stopped the judges from reaching the building.

Several hundred Mursi supporters had protested outside the court through the night ahead of a session expected to examine the legality of parliament's upper house and the assembly that drafted a new constitution, both of them Islamist-controlled.

The cases have cast a legal shadow over Mursi's efforts to chart a way out of a crisis ignited by a November 22 decree that temporarily expanded his powers and led to nationwide protests against him and his Muslim Brotherhood group.

The court's decision to suspend its activities appeared unlikely to have any immediate impact on Mursi's drive to get the new constitution passed in a national referendum on December 15.

Judges supervise voting in Egypt, and Mursi will need them to oversee the referendum.

But in a blow to the president, an influential body representing judges decided on Sunday not to oversee the vote, the state news agency reported. The Judges' Club's decisions are not binding on members, however.

Vice President Mahmoud Mekky said on Sunday he was confident the judges would perform that role, despite calls by Mursi's critics in the judiciary for a boycott.

Three people have been killed and hundreds wounded in protests and counter-demonstrations over Mursi's decree.

At least 200,000 of Mursi's supporters attended a rally at Cairo University on Saturday. His opponents are staging an open-ended sit-in in Cairo's Tahrir Square, the cradle of the uprising that toppled Hosni Mubarak in February 2011.

The National Salvation Front, an alliance of liberal, leftist and socialist opposition groups, called for protests in Tahrir Square on Tuesday against Mursi holding the referendum on what it branded an "illegitimate constitution".

Mursi and the Muslim Brotherhood, which propelled him to power in a June election, hope to end the crisis by pushing through the new constitution hastily adopted by the drafting assembly on Friday. The next day the assembly handed the text to Mursi, who called the referendum and urged Egyptians to vote.

"The Muslim Brotherhood is determined to go ahead with its own plans regardless of everybody else. There is no compromise on the horizon," said Hassan Nafaa, a professor of political science at Cairo University.

DEEP SUSPICION

Outside the Supreme Constitutional Court, Muslim Brotherhood supporters rallied behind the referendum date. "Yes to the constitution," said a banner held aloft by one protester. Chants demanded the "purging of the judiciary".

The interior minister told the head of the court that the building was accessible and that the protests were peaceful, according a statement from the ministry.

The protest reflected the deep suspicion harbored by Egypt's Islamists towards a court they see as a vestige of the Mubarak era. The same court ruled in June to dissolve the Muslim Brotherhood-led lower house of parliament.

Since then, several legal cases have challenged the legitimacy of the upper house of parliament and the 100-member constituent assembly that wrote the constitution.

Those against the upper house have focused on the legality of the law by which it was elected, while the constitutional assembly has faced a raft of court cases alleging that the way it was picked was illegal.

Mursi believes securing approval for the new constitution in a popular referendum will bury all arguments on the legality of the constituent assembly, as well as controversy over the text it worked through the night to finish on Friday.

It will also override the November 22 decree that drew concern from Western governments and a rebellion by sections of the judiciary. The decree shielded Mursi from judicial oversight.

While the Islamists' critics, including representatives of the Christian minority, have accused the Brotherhood of trying to hijack the constitution, investors appear to have seen Mursi's moves as a harbinger of stability. They were also relieved that Saturday's mass Islamist protest went off calmly.

The main stock market index, which lost a tenth of its value in response to Mursi's November 22 decree, rallied more than 2 percent when the market opened on Sunday.

"The events that took place through the weekend, from the approval of the final draft of the constitution and the president calling a referendum, gave some confidence to investors that political stability is on track," said Mohamed Radwan of Pharos Securities, an Egyptian brokerage.

OPPOSITION INFURIATED

But opposition parties have been infuriated by what they see as the Brotherhood's attempt to ram through a constitution that does not enjoy national consensus. Mursi's opponents warn of deeper polarization ahead.

Liberal figures, including former Arab League chief Amr Moussa, pulled out of the constituent assembly last month, as did Christian representatives.

The draft constitution contains Islamist-flavored language which opponents say could be used to whittle away human rights and stifle criticism. It forbids blasphemy and "insults to any person", does not explicitly uphold women's rights and demands respect for "religion, traditions and family values".

New York-based Human Rights Watch said the draft constitution protected some rights while undermining others.

The text limits presidents to two four-year terms, requires parliamentary approval for their choice of prime minister, and introduces some civilian oversight of the military - although not enough for critics. Mubarak ruled for three decades.

Mursi described it as a constitution that fulfilled the goals of the revolution that ended Mubarak's rule. "Let everyone -- those who agree and those who disagree -- go to the referendum to have their say," he said.

The Islamists are gambling that they will be able to secure a "Yes" vote by mobilizing their core support base.

(Writing by Tom Perry; Editing by Alistair Lyon and Roger Atwood)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/egypts-top-court-shuts-down-blames-protesters-051812098.html

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ANALYSIS: Egyptians warn Morsi is no friend of US

As protesters clashes, President Mohammed Morsi of Egypt announced a referendum on a proposed constitution. NBC's Jim Maceda reports.

By Richard Engel, NBC News Chief Foreign Correspondent

News Analysis

TAHRIR SQUARE, CAIRO -- This was the place where the revolution began: the roundish square where Egyptians celebrated Mubarak's fall.

This is where they are shouting on bullhorns again, outraged because they say the Muslim Brotherhood has stolen the revolution and is railroading though a constitution that could lock in Muslim Brotherhood rule for 50 years, bringing more Islamic law. They cry -- not against Islam -- but that an extremist interpretation is being forced down their throats by a president who critics say is acting every part the tyrant. ?

This is also a warning, they claim, of what may happen across the Middle East. The era of the Muslim?Brotherhood appears to have arrived. President Obama has hailed the Brotherhood's President Mohammed Morsi as a pragmatist who helped end the Gaza crisis. Egyptians here think the Brotherhood has conned Washington, just like it conned them.

Christians, liberals left out as Islamists back Egypt's draft constitution

"President?Obama is supporting a terrorist," a man told me amid chants of "Leave! Leave!" in Tahrir Square and "Down, down with the rule of the Muslim Brotherhood's spiritual leader." Before, it was "Down, down with Mubarak."

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Morsi's decree divides Egypt
Egypt was torn in half just over a week ago when Morsi made himself more powerful than Mubarak ever was, and the kings before him. Morsi declared himself above judicial oversight, his decisions final and unassailable. He made himself, according to critics, a new pharaoh on the Nile. Imagine if, after five months in office, an American president announced that he could pass any law he pleased regardless of Congress or the U.S. Supreme Court. Imagine if he said his decisions were final and inspired by God.

After issuing a decree making himself more powerful than the courts, Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi has sparked a wave of anger – some of which is directed toward the United States. NBC's Richard Engel reports.

Morsi last night apologized for the power grab and said he didn't want the extra authorities, but that they were necessary for the good of the people and to safeguard the revolution. Dictators always say stuff like that. Burn down the village to save it.

At first Egyptians were shocked that Morsi would make such an obvious and, according to Egyptian judges, blatantly illegal move. It's clear now, as some analysts have long feared, that the brotherhood is making sure it doesn't lose power again by taking control of Egypt's constitution. The Brotherhood wants to write the rules of the game. Now they've done that too.

PhotoBlog: Dueling demonstrations in Cairo

Protected by the president's new-found supreme and unquestionable powers, Morsi ordered his Islamist allies to finish writing the constitution and get it on his desk by the end of this week. They did it, even though many independent legal experts, Christians and opposition politicians boycotted the drafting process. The Brotherhood called the new constitution "a jewel." Many Egyptians say it leaves too much room for the implementation of Shariah law. ?

The constitution also empowers the people and government with a duty to uphold moral values, a vague clause that could pave the way for vigilante morality police. The constitution barely mentions protecting women's rights. According to women who were originally involved in the drafting process, and who subsequently left because they felt they were being ignored, clauses specifically demanding that women be protected from violence and sex trafficking were dropped because Islamists feared it would conflict with their desire to allow child brides.

ANALYSIS: Crisis tests Egyptians' constitution

The constitution has long been the Muslim Brotherhood's lodestar and, in the past, they have been willing the kill for it. In 1954, not long after a group of 'free officers' carried out a coup against the British-backed monarchy, a Brotherhood assassin tried to kill President Gamal Abdel Nasser. Nasser, a leading free officer, favored a mostly secular, pro-military constitution. The Brotherhood, an Islamist group that supports the return of Arab and Islamic unity and the revival of ancient Muslim glory and Shariah laws, couldn't accept the new rules.

The Brotherhood's assassination attempt failed. The gunman's eight bullets, fired while Nasser was giving a speech in Alexandria, all missed. The Brotherhood was banned. The group went underground, at times tolerated but more often repressed by Nasser's successors: presidents Mubarak and Anwar el-Sadat. When the revolts started against Mubarak, the Brotherhood saw that fate had given them another chance.

Muslim Brotherhood's calculated rise to power
Looking back now, it all seems so obvious, yet many Egyptians refused to see it coming. In fact, many of the secular revolutionaries backed the Brotherhood, arguing they were better allies than the hated military. The Brotherhood played its cards well.

The Brotherhood was late to join the anti-Mubarak revolts in 2011. When students and liberals initially occupied Tahrir Square, it looked like it might be a passing thing. The Brotherhood either didn't appreciate its significance, or wanted to wait to see who was winning.

I remember watching the Brothers march into the square. They arrived in a large group of perhaps five hundred. Nearly all were men. Many had beards. Most were dressed in poorly cut dark suits. They occupied a corner of Tahrir near a Kentucky Fried Chicken. They came with microphones and wood to build a platform. The other protesters in the square seemed happy to have the support of the new arrivals.

Egypt's Morsi, top judges compromise to defuse soaring tensions over decree

The protests continued to grow. Labor unions went on strike. The military enacted a coup against Mubarak. President Obama withdrew his support for Washington's long-time Arab friend. And Mubarak the president was no more.

The Brotherhood first said it wouldn't seek the new presidency at all. It promised to exist solely as an influential member of civil society. Back then, many Egyptians feared the Brotherhood. It was a semi-secret group. It had a small office in a Cairo apartment building with a sign on the door the size of an index card. Mubarak-era officials had often described the Brotherhood as a group of terrorists. One security official I know called the Brotherhood the most dangerous group in the world. But in the heady 1960s-like days after Mubarak's resignation, the Brotherhood's bad reputation only seemed to give the group more credibility. They'd been oppressed by the man. It was a new day. Everyone, it appeared, deserved a new beginning.

The Brotherhood went to work. It organized its considerable finances. It built a big new headquarters with far bigger signs on the doors. It sent its representatives around the world, especially to Washington, on a charm offensive. We've been oppressed, they claimed. We were slandered by a tyrant. We're not what you've heard. We can unite the Sunni world against Iran. We can help bring Israeli-Palestinian peace. There were many promises of a great future.

Even then, the Brotherhood's focus on the constitution was clear. The Brotherhood insisted the constitution be drafted only after a new president was elected. The military was overseeing a transition back then. The Brotherhood argued that the military couldn't be trusted to oversee the creation of such an important document. Many Egyptians agreed -- a decision some sorely regret today.

NBC's Ayman Mohyeldin discusses the current unrest in Egypt

Morsi won the election by a narrow margin and then five months into his term, made himself a dictator and ordered his Islamist friends to quickly finish the constitution. Morsi has said he'll drop his extraordinary powers as soon as the constitution is approved in a referendum in December. Islamists are convinced they'll be able to use their grassroots network of activists to win the referendum like they won the elections. Western diplomats tend to agree.

Yet the United States has remained mostly silent on all this, urging both sides to stay calm and work it out. Washington's policy seems to be that what's going on is simply democracy in progress as Egyptians learn to use their new rights.

But in Tahrir Square people seem convinced the Brotherhood isn't testing its fledgling wings. They say Morsi knows exactly what he's doing, Washington be warned.?

More world stories from NBC News:

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Source: http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/12/01/15578733-egyptians-fear-decades-of-muslim-brotherhood-rule-warn-morsi-is-no-friend-to-us?lite

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Morse Launches To Automatically Add Phone Numbers To Contacts From Your Gmail Inbox

When I want to find a number to actually call someone on the phone and I know it's in an email signature somewhere, I generally search for that person's email address in Gmail and find the number that way. Morse, a Toronto-based startup launching its product today, automates that process to comb your inbox for phone numbers and automatically syncs them with your existing contact information.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/wL7NXLfcvaY/

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LA Charities, Giving Tuesday 2012: How You Can Help Out Locally This Holiday Season (PHOTOS)

After indulging during Thanksgiving, Black Friday and then Cyber Monday, it's about time we give back to those who have less. Hence, 'Giving Tuesday.'

We love the concept but we also think the holidays in general are an important time to give. Many families affected by the recession won't be able to afford much of a celebration. Others, living on the streets, will be enduring cold temperatures. And in Los Angeles, we have a greater homeless population than any other U.S. city.

Luckily, LA is also home to many compassionate, effective charities that work tirelessly for those who have not. And they need your help, whether it be monetarily or through volunteering. Click here for an extensive database of charities in your area.

Take a look at a few of our favorite LA charities, and give what you can:

• Homeboy Industries

  Homeboy Industries assists high-risk youth, former gang members and the recently incarcerated with a variety of free programs, such as mental health counseling, legal services, tattoo removal, curriculum and education classes, work-readiness training, and employment services. Homeboy employs these youth at its businesses, which include the Homeboy Bakery, Homegirl Caf? & Catering, Homeboy/Girl Merchandise, Homeboy Farmers Markets, The Homeboy Diner at City Hall, Homeboy Silkscreen & Embroidery, Homeboy Grocery and the soon-to-open Homeboy Cafe & Bakery in the American Airlines terminal at Los Angeles International Airport. <a href="http://www.homeboyindustries.org/how-you-can-help/">Click here</a> to find out how you can help.

• Downtown Women's Center

  The Downtown Women's Center serves homeless women with permanent supportive housing, meals, personalized case management, an on-site medical clinic, health workshops and screenings, computer literacy, government benefits advocacy, support groups, job counseling, and self-expression classes. <a href="http://dwcweb.org/involved.htm">Click here</a> to find out how to help.

• 826 LA

  826LA is a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting students ages 6 to 18 with their creative and expository writing skills, and to helping teachers inspire their students to write. It provides after-school tutoring, evening and weekend workshops, in-school tutoring, help for English language learners, and assistance with student publications. <a href="http://826la.org/WP/2012/11/27/mark-today-as-giving-tuesday/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=mark-today-as-giving-tuesday">Click here</a> to find out how to help.<a href="http://826la.org/"></a>

• Inner-City Arts

  Inner-City Arts provides elementary, middle and high school students with art education in the heart of Skid Row. <a href="http://www.inner-cityarts.org/how-you-can-help.php">Click here</a> to find out how you can help.

• Los Angeles Boys & Girls Club

  The Los Angeles Boys & Girls Club is a safe place for kids and teens to play sports, learn to swim, improve their academics, and give back to the community. <a href="http://www.labgc.org/">Click here</a> to find out how to help.

• Midnight Mission

  Located in the heart of Skid Row, the Midnight Mission is a center for the homeless of LA. The Mission provides counseling, education, training, job placement, food, shelter, clothing, personal hygiene needs, medical care, and 12-step recovery programs. <a href="http://www.midnightmission.org/help.asp">Click here</a> to find out how to help.

• People Assisting The Homeless

  PATH is a family of agencies working together to end homelessness throughout Southern California by prioritizing housing. PATH agencies provide supportive services, permanent housing development, support for homeless families and community engagement. <a href="http://www.epath.org/site/main.html">Click here</a> to find out how to help.

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/27/la-charities-giving-tuesday-2012-photos_n_2199969.html

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Defoe leads Spurs to 3-1 win against West Ham

Associated Press Sports

updated 2:42 p.m. ET Nov. 25, 2012

LONDON (AP) -Jermain Defoe scored once in each half Sunday as Tottenham beat West Ham 3-1 to end a run of three straight Premier League losses.

The England striker found the net in the 44th and 64th minutes at White Hart Lane to tally seven league goals for the season.

Spurs winger Gareth Bale made it 2-0 in the 58th minute.

On-loan striker Andy Carroll scored in the 82nd minute for his first goal in 11th league appearances for West Ham since moving from Liverpool in August.

Tottenham rose to seventh spot, five points out of the Champions League places. West Ham is a point and place behind Spurs.

Spurs lost to Arsenal, Manchester City and Wigan in its previous league matches.

? 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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Chelsea is held 0-0 by Man City

Rafa Benitez endured a hostile reception and gave the restless Chelsea fans nothing to cheer about as his first match in charge ended in a drab 0-0 draw with Manchester City on Sunday.

Source: http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/49956403/ns/sports-soccer/

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behave leonore: Shopping and Product Reviews: Will Traditional ...

The popularity of online shopping has been seen by many as a threat to the existence of traditional shopping. Their argument is based on the recent widespread closure of established brands like Sears and Best Buy. But can we really say that traditional shopping is dying?

In 2011, even though the U.S economy was sluggish, shopping grew by 15% over the previous year. In addition, about 35% of Americans now have smartphones which enable them to purchase goods and services over the internet and this figure is expected to rise significantly in subsequent years. In actual fact, about half of smartphone users have used their phones for one purchase or the other. On Christmas day of 2011 alone, about 6.8 million iOs and Android smartphones were activated. Top internet retailer, Amazon, recorded a whooping net sale of $48.08 billion in 2011 which represents 40.6% increase over $32.20 billion recorded in 2010. This figure is expected to rise in 2012 and subsequent years. What then is the implication of all these to physical retailing?

Since many people now decide to shop over the internet due to the benefits derivable in doing so like convenience, easy access to market, price comparison, avoidance of crowd, better prices and so on, can we really say that that the traditional way of shopping is being threatened? In my own opinion, technology will enhance the traditional method and not kill it. The popularity of video cassette recorder (VCR) in the 80's was seen by many as a threat to movie theaters then, but today, the film industry has been strengthened by the new technology and the demand for films has increased.

Moreover, when the email became very popular, a lot people thought that the traditional postal service would die, but today, it is waxing stronger. The point I'm driving at here is that, if traditional shop owners can embrace new technology, shopping on the internet would not be a threat to them but a blessing.

If physical retailers can monitor shopping behavior through the use of Wi-Fi signals from smartphones, they would be able to compete favorably in a fast-changing world. They can use technology to measure loyalty, make better staffing decisions, improve store layouts, reduce wait times in checkout lines and so on. Online shopping has come to stay but it is not a threat to traditional shopping because many consumers still value some of its features like quality of customer service, the experience of trying and buying products, how products are displayed and so on.

Olushola Otenaike is an online shopping expert.

Source: http://mysoupbaby.blogspot.com/2012/11/will-traditional-shopping-die-because.html

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Source: http://behave-leonore.blogspot.com/2012/11/shopping-and-product-reviews-will.html

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Digital Storm Bolt SFF Gaming PC Review - HotHardware

There are four levels of Bolt systems, from the Level 1 starting at $999 up to the Level 4 at $1,949. Digital Storm sent us the Level 3 to test out ($1,599), and this version includes an Intel Core i5-3570K (overclocked to 4.2GHz), 8GB DDR3-1600MHz of Corsair Vengeance Series memory, and an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 Ti (2GB) graphics card.

Digital Storm paired a 60GB Corsair SSD with a 1TB hard drive (7200 RPM) for a nice one-two combination of speed and storage capacity, and the optical drive is a slim DVD/CD 8x Multi drive.

All of the above is connected to a Gigabyte GA-Z77N-WIFI motherboard, which features a fine assortment of rear I/O ports including a PS/2 port, two HDMI ports, DVI-I, two USB 3.0 and four USB 2.0 ports, a pair of Gigabit LAN ports, an optical S/PDIF port, two antenna connectors, and five audio jacks.

There are also two USB 3.0 ports, two USB 2.0 ports, and mic/line in jacks mounted on a side panel. Typically, these are mounted on the front of the case, but Digital Storm made the interesting design choice to tuck them off to the side.

Normally, you?ll get an ?accessories box? and a Digital Storm Binder with documentation and installation discs, but because we have a media test unit, Digital Storm didn?t send us all those goodies. So it goes.

Before we dive into our benchmark testing, let's take a closer look at this rig.

Source: http://hothardware.com/Reviews/Digital-Storm-Bolt-Gaming-PC-Review/

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How many ways can you use rhetorical questions in your speech?

A rhetorical question is a common rhetorical device where a question is asked by a speaker, but no answer is expected from the audience. This distinguishes it from explicit verbal audience interaction where a speaker asks a question, and then waits for a response or calls on someone to answer it.

You are certainly aware of this technique, but are you aware that you can use a rhetorical question in at least nine different ways? No? Read on!

This article identifies nine ways to use rhetorical questions, and provides examples throughout.

Strategies when asking rhetorical questions

Like other speech techniques, rhetorical questions can be used in a variety of ways, depending on the needs of the speaker and the speech.

It is rarely necessary to ask a rhetorical question; there is nearly always another way to convey the same idea without using a question. But rhetorical questions, like other rhetorical devices, add variety and interest to a speech.

Here are nine strategies that can be fulfilled (often in combination) with a carefully crafted rhetorical question:

1. Engage the audience to think with a rhetorical question.

The most popular use of a rhetorical question is to engage your audience to think. If your entire speech is a series of statements, your audience may passively listen?and absorb little. On the other hand, you can make them active participants in your speech by inviting them to think about your arguments. This is most effective if they are asked to think about an issue from a fresh perspective.

For example, suppose you are delivering a goal achievement seminar. While many people feel that external forces prevent them from realizing their goals, you might engage your audience to think about their self-defeating behaviors:

Setting goals is easy, but achieving them isn?t so simple. How are you sabotaging yourself?

2. Invite your audience to agree with you by asking a rhetorical question.

To persuade your audience, they must see you as credible. One way to build credibility is to convince your audience that you are similar to them and share their beliefs. One way to do this is by asking a rhetorical question where the answer has the audience agreeing with you, perhaps even nodding their head in agreement.

For example, suppose you are speaking at a networking event for working mothers, and you represent a local health spa:

Given how hard you work ? both at the office and at home ? don?t you deserve a day at the spa?

[When your audience silently answers "Yes, I do deserve that", the effect is that they see themselves as more similar to you.]

3. Stir emotions by asking a rhetorical question.

Effective speakers know how to stir audience emotions. Rhetorical questions do this by making the audience a partner in your emotional statements. Instead of delivering one-way emotional statements, you can involve your audience more emotionally by hooking them with a rhetorical question.

For example, suppose you are at a political rally. Instead of saying:

They?ve never done anything to help us.

Try:

What have they ever done to help us?

The latter version is stronger, because it triggers an emotional response by having the audience thinking ?Nothing! They?ve done nothing!?

4. Emphasize a previous statement with a rhetorical question.

Rhetorical questions can be used as an exclamation point on a preceding statement. While the preceding statement may be a factual statement, a rhetorical question forces your audience to think hard about it.

For example, suppose you are speaking out against gang violence in your community:

17 of our sons and daughters have already died in gang-related crime. How many will it take before we act?

5. Invoke misdirection with a rhetorical question.

Careful use of misdirection in a speech is an effective way of generating audience surprise, and this results in them being active participants. One form of misdirection is when you make a statement which leads in one direction, and then follow it up with a statement that pulls in the opposite direction.

For example, suppose you are trying to motivate your sales department:

Financial analysts in our industry predict that sales are going to be down next year. But does that prediction apply to us? [... and then you go on to show why it does not...]

In the above example, the rhetorical question followed a contrasting statement. But this pattern can be reversed with the rhetorical question preceding a contrasting statement. For example:

Why would anyone care about the polling data, when it has proven to be inaccurate in the past? The primary reason is that polling firms have been using entirely different methods this time?

6. Ask and answer a rhetorical question your audience may be thinking.

Thorough audience analysis will reveal many questions that members of your audience may have. Rather than waiting to address these questions following your speech (e.g. in a Q&A session), you can address them in the body of your speech by asking the question and immediately answering it.

For example, imagine that you are speaking to a new parents? support group:

As a new parent, you often wonder: What can I do to give my child an intellectual jump start? The answer is reading aloud to them every day.

Or, consider another example:

Why is it important to exercise our right to vote? Voting is a duty of active citizenship!

7. Answer a question with another rhetorical question.

A common technique to answer a question (either one you have raised, or one coming from your audience) is to respond with a rhetorical question. This is done when the two questions (the one you were asked, and the one you responded with) have the same answer (typically, either ?yes? or ?no?).

For example:

Will we win the contract? Is the sky blue?

The obvious answer to the second question is ?yes?, and this implies the answer to the first is also ?yes?.

Or, consider another example:

Do you think we should give up on our school and close it? Do pigs fly?

This time, the obvious answer to the second question is ?no?, and this implies the answer to the first is also ?no?.

Beware when using this technique as it can sound cliche to your audience. If you can, make the second question fresh and unique to your audience.

8. Ask a series of rhetorical questions to highlight divergent thoughts.

When speaking about a particularly complex issue, one technique that reinforces this complexity is to ask a series of questions which, if answered, would all point in different directions.

For example:

How can we stop bullying in school? Is the answer to educate the bullies? Or educate those being bullied? Do we need more supervision on playgrounds? How about stricter penalties for offenders? [...]

A series of questions like this might be used in the opening of a speech, while the body of the speech might follow up on the individual questions one by one.

9. Ask a series of rhetorical questions to highlight convergent thoughts.

A series of rhetorical questions can also be used in situations where, if the questions were answered, all of the answers would point in the same direction. This technique is a variation on repetition and could be used to emphasize a point repeatedly.

For example:

Who has turned around our club and made it prosperous? Who is tireless in her devotion to this club? Who is our undisputed leader? Of course I am speaking of our club president Laurelle who we honor here today.

What do you think?

That?s not a rhetorical question. I really do want to hear what you think. Please add a comment to share your ideas about how to use rhetorical questions.

Source: http://sixminutes.dlugan.com/rhetorical-questions/

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New Jerseyans flock to bars after Sandy keeps them indoors

NEPTUNE CITY, New Jersey (Reuters) - One Jersey Shore woman said she felt claustrophobic at home, a man said he suffered cabin fever while said they were sure they were going "stir crazy." Many people shut in by superstorm Sandy broke the monotony Sunday by taking to a cozy barstool with a drink in hand.

Since Monday night at 8:15 p.m., when the storm knocked out power, Paulette Balla had been forced to sit at home in Asbury Park in the darkness wearing "a hoodie, a sweatshirt, a pair of gloves" and swaddled in two blankets to stay warm, she said. The only time she ventured out before Sunday was to hunt for gasoline.

But as she sat at the crowded bar at Clancy's Tavern in Neptune City and enjoyed the heated room and the glow from her friends' faces, the hardship the storm had forced on her was gone.

"This is like heaven," said Balla, 60. "It is great to be out. I felt claustrophobic at home."

The inability to fire up the furnace as the nights grew colder last week was very difficult to take. "I have been using hot tap water for my tea. It didn't really make it," she said.

People along the East Coast and especially New Jersey have had to face unaccustomed privation - little to no hot food, showers, cable TV, electricity and Internet.

Steve McLaughlin, 59, of Avon, said he loves his mother in law "dearly." The 87-year-old woman had recently moved into a nearby apartment, but when Sandy knocked out her heat, he and his wife took her in and sat her in front of the fireplace in their living room.

"I've had no TV, Internet and heat. I have experienced cabin fever with my mother in law in the cabin," he said as he sat at the bar at Darcy's Tavern in Bradley Beach. After a pause he diplomatically continued: "But I do love her dearly."

He took his first "leisure trip" out on Sunday. He was enjoying the football games, a few beers and the heightened conviviality, he said he felt from the crowd. "Everyone here is having a very good time."

Bar Anticipation in Lake Como is among the most popular bars on the Jersey Shore because of its big name bands, multiple TVs and very large and lively crowds - especially on Sundays during football season when there is a free hot buffett.

Johnnie B., the manager for 12 years, who did not want to give his last name, said he had never seen the appreciation for what the bar offers as he did Sunday.

"A mother and daughter came up to me and said 'Thank you, thank you,' because they hadn't eaten in two days," he said. "One friend had been stuck in his second floor because of the floodwater, and when he got here today, he ate and ate."

This isn't a typical bar buffet of burgers, hot dogs and cold fries. Instead, a line of tables leading to the bar's entrance were laden with a huge bowl of king crab legs, and there were platters of barbecued chicken, hero sandwiches, pasta, guacamole and salads served up by four people. Inside, the place was packed.

"I made sure we had more today because I knew we'd have a bigger crowd," the manager said. "People told me they have been going stir crazy. They need to mingle, watch the game and enjoy a drink."

The bar has its own generator so it has been open every night since the storm. "People came here despite the storm this week," he said. "Here there is a sense of normalcy. If we were closed, they would think things were really bad."

(Editing by Cynthia Osterman)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/jerseyans-flock-bars-sandy-keeps-them-indoors-235706475.html

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Observatory: Giant Eucalyptus Trees E arn Rain Forest Stripes

Australia?s giant eucalyptus trees, the tallest flowering plants on earth, should be classified as a species of rain forest tree, a new study reports.

David Tng

Giant eucalyptus trees in Australia rely on wildfires to help clear out the competition.

This was the conclusion drawn by David Bowman, a forest ecologist at the University of Tasmania in Australia and one the study?s authors. He and his colleagues propose their idea in the current issue of the journal New Phytologist.

They did a comparative analysis with other rain forest trees and report that Eucalyptus regnans grows within the boundaries of Australia?s rain forests, and shares traits with rain forest trees. In the past, the tree has been classified as unique vegetation in Australia because it has an unusual dependency on fire that allows it to outcompete other trees. Its seeds are protected from wildfires in aerial capsules, and after a fire they fall to the scorched ground and proliferate.

?These pathetic little seeds, the size of a pinhead, grow like Jack?s beanstalk,? Dr. Bowman said. ?It?s some of the fastest growth on earth, and then they can sit back and rule the forest until they die.?

Rain forest trees generally are intolerant to shade and require open ground that is free of an overhead canopy for their seeds to germinate, Dr. Bowman said.

Although the eucalyptus depends on wildfires to create these circumstances, it too has these traits.

Classifying the species as a rain forest tree may help preserve the giant eucalyptus, which in recent years has been overharvested.

?It requires a shift in thinking,? Dr. Bowman said. ?Calling them rain forest trees might put people on better behavior.?

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/06/science/giant-eucalyptus-trees-e-arn-rain-forest-stripes.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

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Zombies invade the streets of Mexico City

• Current Rating 3.8/5
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Current Rating 3.8

Thousands of ?zombies? take over the streets of Mexico City as the undead participate in the city?s sixth annual zombie walk.

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At euronews we believe in the intelligence of our viewers and we think that the mission of a news channel is to deliver facts without any opinion or bias, so that the viewers can make their own opinion on world events.

We also think that sometimes images need no explanation or commentary, which is why we created No Comment and now No Comment TV: to show the world from a different angle?

More about: Mexico, Odd, Zombies

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Google+ Trendy? Or a Must on YOUR ?to do? List? What I learned in ...

?Google+ To Increase Your Traffic??

I just finished a Class today with Eric Proulx, and Bob Stewart on ActiveRain, and what I learned!?

Google+ Trendy?? Or a Must on YOUR ?to do? List?

OH NO!? ?another thing to do. ?I don?t know about you, but some days I?m exhausted of all this blogging, SEO, Twitter, FB, AR contests etc! The thought of one more thing on the list can be overwhelming. Question is, should Google+ be dismissed as trendy? Or is it something that is extremely important. You be the judge!

The class today taught me a few new things that I did not know about Google+ and why I am thinking it is a super important part of my internet presence. It is more than a social network and this is why. Google+ is owned by Google. People are searching Google all day long for just about everything. There are over 100 Million users... and this 20 million more than Facebook. Facebook is for the people that are your friends. Google is for searching and meeting people. Set up your Google+ account and the profile you set up is how Google knows who YOU are!? This way you become socially active and get to use Target Keywords in your interactions.

I set up my account a while ago and was not really thinking much about it. I did meet up with a few people there and commented once in a while and wasn?t really paying much attention to this. Recently I began to see the light and began to get involved in the process. I submitted all my website for Google Authorship with the help of ActiveRain and the people that know how to do this. The interesting thing is that traffic to my website is increasing.? Clients are telling me that they see me all over the internet! That for me is a sweet place to be. My phone is ringing... and that is what counts!

This seems to be the trend for where social media and Google search will matter going forward. I think that getting in on this early is important. It does not take big amount of time from my day, and the people I see using it are top producers. To me that says something.? Trendy or trending.. I am not waiting to find out the answer?. Waiting to find out the answer could cost me from being number one when my clients search on Google! So I say thanks to all for letting me the how and they why.. I am convinced!

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Source: http://activerain.com/blogsview/3499616/google-trendy-or-a-must-on-your-to-do-list-what-i-learned-in-class

PSEG

Campaigns lawyered up for election overtime chance

Voters line up at the Downtown West location in Knoxville, Tenn., to cast their early voting ballot on Thursday, Nov. 1, 2012. Early voting in Tennessee ends on Thursday with the general election occurring on Tuesday, Nov. 7, 2012. (AP Photo/Knoxville News Sentinel, Bruce Carillon)

Voters line up at the Downtown West location in Knoxville, Tenn., to cast their early voting ballot on Thursday, Nov. 1, 2012. Early voting in Tennessee ends on Thursday with the general election occurring on Tuesday, Nov. 7, 2012. (AP Photo/Knoxville News Sentinel, Bruce Carillon)

MIAMI (AP) ? Legions of lawyers are ready to enter the fray in case Election Day turns on a legal challenge. One nightmare scenario would be for the results in a battleground state like Florida or Ohio to be too close to call, with thousands of absentee or provisional ballots yet to be counted.

The key, experts say, is whether the difference in votes between the two candidates is within what's known as the "margin of litigation" ? that is, the number of outstanding votes must be much greater than the margin separating Obama and Romney when the smoke clears. And, it must be in a state that's decisive.

"You'd have to have a state whose Electoral College votes are absolutely pivotal or there would have to be a massive problem involving voters," said Richard Hasen, law professor at the University of California, Irvine, and founding editor of the Election Law Journal. "There not only have to be problems in an election. They have to be widespread enough or the margin close enough that litigating would actually make a difference."

Legal and campaign officials on both sides say lawyers are poised at both the national level and in the key states to respond immediately if a court challenge is needed. The political parties have gained a lot of experience in legal fights over U.S. Senate and House seats. The last major legal battle over the presidency was the 2000 race, settled by the U.S. Supreme Court favoring George W. Bush over Al Gore.

On the Republican side, Washington attorney Benjamin Ginsberg leads the team. Ginsberg was deeply involved in the 2000 court fight as national counsel to the Bush campaign. Ginsberg is assisted by Kathryn Biber, the Romney campaign's general counsel, and Lee Rudofsky, who is the campaign's Election Day operations director.

Calling the shots for the Democrats is Robert Bauer, another well-known Washington lawyer, who is a former Obama White House counsel and Democratic National Committee attorney. Bauer oversees hundreds of lawyers who have volunteered to set up shop in "boiler room" operations in battleground states and across the country.

Both sides will have local attorneys on the team as well.

The Obama campaign also has built up a computerized system to track Election Day incidents in real time. Democratic poll monitors and operatives can call in incidents as they occur and the computer-based system will quickly give campaign officials in Chicago the ability to track and compare the reports and respond quickly.

"No one's going to be flat-footed here, or for that matter anyplace else," said Stephen Hunter Johnson, general counsel to the Miami-Dade County Democratic Party. "Whatever the challenges are, we're up and ready."

Lawyers will observe at targeted polling places, joined by tea party activists and voting abuse critics on the Republican side and civil rights and union groups on the Democratic side. And in crucial battleground states such as Ohio, Florida, Wisconsin and Virginia, Republicans have added legal and political muscle from governors, secretaries of state and GOP-dominated legislatures.

Some legal skirmishes have already begun. Bauer, for instance, wrote this week to Wisconsin's secretary of state raising questions about reports that some Romney poll watchers were being trained with information that could mislead or intimidate voters. State officials said they did not find evidence of egregious transgressions, but the issue could resurface in a potential postelection legal fight.

Election law experts say it's most likely that litigation over the presidency would come down to Florida or Ohio and probably involve either absentee ballots or provisional votes, meaning those that must be verified later by local election officials for a variety of reasons, such as a voter showing up at the wrong precinct, not having proper identification or having their eligibility to vote called into question by a poll watcher.

Edward Foley, director of the election law program at Ohio State University, came up with a hypothetical scenario in which Romney leads Ohio by 10,000 votes the day after the election ? but there are 150,000 outstanding provisional ballots that must be examined. Ohio law gives voters 10 days, until Nov. 17, to provide officials with any information needed to show they are eligible to vote.

Under this scenario, if Obama were trailing, Foley said the president's legal team would try to "rescue" as many provisional ballots as possible and likely would head to court to obtain lists of voters' names they could contact. A similar fight took place in Washington state in a 2004 Senate race, he noted.

"It would not surprise me if there emerged a legal tussle over the availability of this information," Foley wrote in a recent article on the scenario.

That would mean Americans might not know the identity of their next president until well into November.

The provisional votes also could come up in Florida, the other big battleground state. University of Florida political science professor Daniel Smith noted than in the August primary about 22 percent of all provisional ballots were rejected by local canvassing boards. That too could become a source of court battles over the validity of such rejections, if the initial outcome in Florida is close enough.

"There's no question we're going to have a boatload of provisional ballots as well as overseas ballots that are not going to be tabulated until after Nov. 6," Smith said.

Sometimes evidence of election problems doesn't lead to litigation, even though it could. In 2004, Democratic nominee John Kerry initially refused to concede because of issues with provisional ballots and other problems in Ohio. But the day after the election, when Bush's lead in the state swelled to about 100,000 votes, it was clear a court fight wouldn't matter and the Democratic lawyers backed off.

It's all about the margin, said Johnson of the Miami-Dade Democrats, who said:

"Litigation can be expected unless there's a clear outcome on Election Day."

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Braun reported from Washington.

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Follow Curt Anderson on Twitter: http://twitter.com/Miamicurt

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/89ae8247abe8493fae24405546e9a1aa/Article_2012-11-02-Campaign-Lawyering%20Up/id-7353f6ecf74f498ba41b4da557465d05

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